


Till the Moon has Taken Flight

by LectorEl



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:57:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this prompt:<br/>Tim is been kept apart from his loved one (up to you who) by another who wants his love. The catch? This third wheel can’t be any villain or Damian or Jason, meaning people you could easily see doing it. Try someone totally unexpected.<br/>I’m dying to see what your devious mind could come up with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till the Moon has Taken Flight

Cass caught him by the wrist, pulling Tim away from the window. “Not safe,” she reminded him. Tim nodded reluctantly.

“I only want to see them. That’s not so dangerous, is it?” Tim asked. Cass shook her head empathetically, dragging Tim back to the fortified heart of the manor.

“Not safe,” she repeated. Steph slid back the deadbolt on the door into the buffer zone, letting Tim and Cass inside before slamming it shut, and rebolting the door.

“You stupid _idiot_ ,” Steph hissed, hugging Tim so tightly he couldn’t breathe. “What if Bruce saw you? They could have taken you again.”

Tim winced. “I’m sorry. I just…” He trailed off, unable to explain the compulsion that had drawn him out into the relative dangers beyond the safe area they’d established. Steph looked at him like he had lost his mind.

“Lonely. Longing for lost things,” Cass added. Tim shrugged. That felt close enough to right.

“What Cass said, I guess.” Tim followed them meekly through the buffer zone, listening carefully as Steph explained what this week’s booby traps were. The outer walls of the manor hadn’t been breeched in three months. But that wasn’t any reason to get careless.

The buffer zone- a wide ring around the kitchen, pantry and dining room of the west wing- included the receiving room at one end, the laundry, mail and the mud rooms on the other. On the remaining sides were twenty landmine strewn, pit trapped feet of the manor grounds.

It had been nearly a year since the Event. Four months since they’d gotten Damian and him. Over three months since Tim had last seen any of them. The scars at the back of his neck were finally starting to fade.

Tim held back a sigh as they entered the dining room. The boarded over windows and the oil lamp’s dim light induced an immediate feeling of claustrophobia, not at all helped by the wall to wall jumble of blankets, canned goods, bottled water, explosive components, medical supplies and weaponry. The only clear patch was around the neat pallet against the back wall, sword lain neatly down the middle. Damian’s bed.

“I miss the brat too,” Steph told him. “That doesn’t make it _okay_ to take risks like that.”

Tim nodded, taking the scolding without complaint. He’d lost the right to object after he’d let them grab him and Damian.

_(“We’ve missed you, little brother. Why are you fighting? Easy, Timmy…”)_

Cass held up a deck of cards. “Spoons?”

“Why not. You in, Tim?” Steph asked. Tim smiled crookedly at the invitation.

“Sure.” Tim sat down with them under the dining room table, turning the oil lamp up just enough that they could see the cards. It’d taken a while to find a game that Cass didn’t have a massive advantage in, but. They had nothing but time, lately.

***

_Heat. Pressure against his neck, hot and sucking. Hands stroking the scars on his back. Tim wanted. He wanted. He wanted to arch up into that touch, he wanted to flee, he wanted to turn and tear out the throat of the one who dared do this. All he could do was whimper and twitch sluggishly under the sensation._

_“You’re awake,” Bruce/Damian/Dick/Jason said, voice echoing strangely. Strong hands lifted him, rearranging him until he lay sprawled in somebody’s lap, his head drooping against their shoulder. Tim struggled to open his eyes, cracking them open just enough to see an disturbing red haze. A hand flashed briefly though his field of vision before light pressure against his eyelids forced them closed._

_“Not yet.” Breath brushes against his ear, the voice a low whisper against the hush. “Be patient. Soon.”_

***

Tim opened his eyes to the soot stained ceiling of the dining room. The one oil lamp burning on the table was just enough to give the darkness edges and form. It was dark, always dark, walls pressing in, suffocating him in the stale air. He needed to get out. Now.

Tim rose to his feet, stepping over Steph and Cass and sliding over to the door to the receiving room. He wouldn’t go far, Tim justified. Just to the foyer. Just to where he could see moonlight.

Carefully, carefully, he crossed the room. He unbolted the door and edged into the foyer, closing the unlocked door behind him. Light, and air. The tension dropped out of his shoulders. If he walked just a little further, he could see out the windows. See the burned out ruins of Gotham in the distance, see which one of them was haunting the manor grounds, waiting to claim Tim and Steph and Cass.

_(“Drake, quit **fighting** it. Just let the change happen.”)_

A knock against the window. Tim flinched back into the shadows. Another, and then two hands pressed up against the fortified glass.

“Hey, baby bird.” The voice was soft, intimate, curling around him like Jason was standing right next to him and not outside.

“Jason,” Tim whispered, throat tight with longing. He stepped forward just enough to see Jason, leaning against the window and smirking.  His hair had grown even longer, matted and wild, brushing past his shoulders and framing the lean, hungry lines of his face.

Jason turned his head to look straight at Tim, pinning him with the inhuman glow of his eyes.

“Come out, come out, little pig little pig,” Jason cooed, eyes bright and laughing.

Tim huffed a laugh. “Not by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin.” He stepped closer, until he could press his palms against the glass where Jason’s hands rested. Jason smiled at him.

“Come home, baby bird,” Jason said. Tim shook his head.

“I am home,” but the words lacked conviction and both of them knew it.

Jason gave him a look, both sad and indulgent. “World’s changed, and the moon’s high. Come run with us.”

“I promised,” Tim said regretfully. He couldn’t- He’d lie to almost anyone, but not Steph and Cass. Not his sisters, not even retroactively.

“You say that now, but you’ll come.” Jason smiled at him, and stepped backward, body dissolving into mist. His voice echoed in Tim’s head. “We can wait a little. But not much longer. And then you’ll help us bring our sisters home.”

Tim shivered, and wished he didn’t believe that too.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a line in Yeat's poem, 'The Stolen Child.'


End file.
